University of Arkansas System Approves Tuition Hike

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The University of Arkansas Board of Trustees approved the tuition increase for its 18 campuses in the U of A System.

Under the plan, the board said tuition would increase by five percent at its flagship campus in Fayetteville.

Breaking down the numbers means the increase tuition would go from its current rate at $7,818 to $8,209. The plan calls for a 6 percent hike at the U of A Fort Smith campus, raising tuition from $5,624 to $5962.

Students at the U of A Little Rock would see a 4.7 percent jump, increasing their tuition from $7,601 to $7,959.

In Monticello, students would see a 5 percent increase, meaning their bill would go from $5,793 to $6,082.

At the University of Arkansas Pine Bluff, students would see the lowest increase, at 3.5 percent. Students there would see their tuition go from $5,753 to $5,956.

The university's two-year colleges would also see similar tuition hikes if the plan goes through.

The additional money would fund a minimum two percent merit raise for the university's faculty and pay for efforts to improve the graduation rate.

Most students at the Fayetteville campus said they aren't happy about the possible increase in the cost of their education.

“It's like we signed a contract with them," Tyler Hartney said, "And we told them we are going to pay this for tuition, and now in the middle of it they can just raise it. It just doesn’t seem fair to students.”

Divin Divakar is an international student from India. He said he pays over $20,000 a year for being a student outside of the U.S.

“It’s really bad for international students, so I think it will be so hard for us," Divakar said, "They should at least give us something. It's college, not a business.”

Meredith Hegedus said she doesn't want her tuition to increase, but she understands that teachers need raises too.

“To see them benefit from this...it would mean a lot obviously to them and to us, but you just want to be able to see that increase help them and help us in return," Hegedus said.

The board has been meeting at the University of Arkansas Community College at Hope.

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38 comments

tired of paying for constant teacher benefits

How about evaluating these “faculty members” for competency, eliminate “tenure”, and restrict pay raises to merit pay. The public is already bailing out these under-worked, over-paid individuals’ health insurance, what more do they want the taxpayers to do for them? Feeding at the public trough needs to stop. There are great, dedicated educators in the system, there are also many parasites hiding behind academia, drawing large public-paid salaries, while spouting their liberal political talking points and ignoring the education they are paid to provide.

FedUp

Patrick

How about they think of the middle class families that don’t get aid of any kind to help pay their students tuition which causes those kids to go into even more financial problem. This is making it to where only the rich can go to school and pay for it or the poor who the government just hands money to. What about the kids that did great in high school but got rejected by all the scholarships and Grants because someone who has just a little less money got that stuff. I’m a college sti

Jack Smith

“Conservatives” collect more welfare than liberals ever thought about. Minimum wage is not a government handout. It’s a regulation to make sure those greedy conservative ran companies actually pay their workers. Without minimum wage those conservatives would force their workers to work for free.

Liberals are the first one’s to stand up against this outrageous tuition and high cost of education. Elizabeth Warren a very liberal/progressive politician has been strongly in support of reigning in outrageous costs and helping students get out of debt!

If conservatives had their way there would be no public education, including schools. Look at other conservative ran countries. Every one of them discourage women from going to school. They even kidnapped a whole class of girls recently. Conservatives have always been about dumbing down society and keeping people under control of the church or the state.

I guarantee you that you take full advantage of those big government programs. Likely you are drawing medicare, medicaid or social security and you probably have some type of fake disability and are drawing a disability check off the government. I run into hypocrite conservatives all the time that BASH liberals and big government yet they themselves are the one’s drawing the food stamps, fake disability, and every other government welfare program there is. 90% of all those idiots that bash liberals and call us lazy are the one’s that are drawing the most out of the system. Of course a conservative says “I’ve earned it” or “I’m entitled to it because I worked x amount of years”–total crock.

RegulationNation

Did you really just compare American conservatism to the ‘conservatism’ in other countries, especially the muslim terrorist countries, as a basis of your argument? Wow…

Two things-

1) I don’t care how many liberals stand up against tuition hikes, the root cause is what you don’t get. Liberals don’t understand basic economics and how flooding the economy with money increases prices of everything. Ever wonder where inflation comes from? You think it really ‘just happens’ naturally?

2)I’m not even going to get into a “you’re probably a…” argument. Your ‘guarantee’ of my ‘fake disabilities’ and other typical childish liberal garbage is wrong. I’m a healthy 35 year old man working a full time career, contributing to society through over taxation and helping the low lifes get their ‘benefits’. Nice ‘statistic’, though. You would almost be able to convince someone who isn’t smart enough to know better.

Seems to me you have some sort of complex against the educated. I wonder why that is?

Tom Sambo

Ted

Thank you 5News for providing a forum which allows people who likely couldn’t pass an 8th grade math or English test to weigh in with their opinions on public higher education. Again, the problems are all the fault of the liberals with their agendas. Building sprees, university planes, university mansions, and assistant deans of development are but minor nuisances when compared with the godless heathens the universities employ as professors and instructors to lie to their students and turn them against their parents, their God, and their country. I can’t even carry my gun onto most college campuses! What happened to my state???

Jack Smith

Godless lol. Wow. I’m sorry timmy but this isn’t the wild west anymore. You can’t just carry a gun wherever you want to. In civilized societies we have what they call rules, laws and regulations. I suggest you move to a more freer continent like Africa. Many countries there have no government at all. Of course local gang lords make you pay a huge ransom every month to “keep accidents from happening” but hey you get to carry your gun!!!!!!! FREEDOM BABY!! FREEDOM!!!! PRAISE JESUS!!!! After all we know that Jesus was a GUN TOTIN’ CONSERVATIVE REPUBLICAN that said screw the poor/ no welfare and lets give tax cuts to the RICH!!

CB

Pardon me Ted but I am not a Godless heathen and neither are the Professors that I have the pleasure to work with. We work hard and we work long hours. We do everything we can to help our students obtain scholarships. We pay for our parking, pay our taxes and try to keep costs at a minimum. You can keep your guns off our campus. I deserve a safe place to work. Maybe you should consider finding another state.

CB

CB, ya because Gun Free Zones are proven to be safe huh? Schools don’t have incidents at all. What cloud you living on?

Also have you seen the report of how public university presidents keep getting increases, and student debt keeps going up as well. Interesting read. Do you deserve a raise? Maybe, don’t know who CB is, don’t know your record, don’t know how the University dolls out raises, but when we, the students, are over one trillion in debt. Then something must change. Maybe not raises, maybe not millions to coaches and to presidents. Just a thought.

aaron Burns

Would it be to much to ask to see a presentation/lecture where the slides did not have another universities logo on them. I mean really, you are going to just steal the other schools entire lecture. Come on…
The engineering school needs some real leadership and integrated math classes.

kathy brown

Why dont they cut the chancellor s and his staff if you look into that it would cover all the worker bees salary .. pretty soon no one will be able to afford to go to college at all then what they gonna do with there million dollar salary. ?

Chris.C

Tom Sambo

So guy from India is complaining about $20,000? Okay, then go back to India if you don’t like it. Before you do, write the system president about raising tuition to the “foreigners” from Texas. They are enjoying in-state rates and clogging up I-49.

aaron Burns

Sarah 1

The real rate of return for university education is 15 percent or much more for individuals, more if medical school or other avenues are pursued. The average college graduate’s earning allow him to recoup the costs of college tuition, fees, and foregone wages during the school years within a short period of time, according to the college resources. Furthermore, a college education yields higher paying careers for men and women of all races and ethnicities, and any amount of college experience results in a financial benefit, compared to having no post-secondary education. The gap in income between college graduates and non graduates has widened over time. I am very thankful for an excellent education from the U of A.

College graduates enjoy a better lifestyle , have better healthcare, their children do well in school, and they also tend to give back to their communities. Except for the college loans, there isn’t a down-side.

Ted

Arkansas is between #1 and #5 in the nation in student loan defaults. Statistically that excellent education you are very thankful for will burden you for the next 10-15 years and there is an 11%-13% chance you will default on it. Student loans cannot be discharged through bankruptcy meaning the only way out of it is repayment, permanent disability, or death.

Upping tuition will make this situation even worse. Also keep in mind that before you repay those loans the university will start asking you for donations and they will never stop.

RegulationNation

Ted is right. I’ll be nearing 50 years old before my Master’s degree is paid off and that doesn’t include the loan for my wife’s bachelors. That’s going to be about $700/mo+ for the next 10-15 years (loans combined) and I am now making $10,000 less per year than I was before I went back to school because the economy, especially Fort Smith’s economy, cannot get moving thanks to this administrations wealth redistribution policies (and our city ‘leaders’ incompetence on the local scale).

Thankfully I was able to get my bachelors degree in the transition from Westark to UAFS before the first ridiculous round of increases on tuition were put through.

Imagine takin classes for $35 per credit hour and very few added fees? Yeah, I remember those days. Back when the school seemingly cared about affordable education and the instructors didn’t talk down to you like you’re an imbecile.

Sarah 1

First of all Ted, my education was a privilege not a burden in any way.

Surely you recommend a college education?

My student debt will be paid in four years. I have not purchased a car and put all my monies toward paying off my loans. The Fayetteville Transit System takes me anywhere I need to be or my friends help out.

I realize there are those who feel the need to own an automobile but life proceeds nicely without one in the garage. I have a fabulous bike for the new biking trail instead.